<p>Joan Miro’s iconic work, The Farm, was painted 90 years ago, and its first owner was Ernest Hemingway, who bought it for $250, writes Giridhar Khasnis<br /><br /></p>.<p>1922. Paris. Twenty-nine year old Joan Miró, an obscure Spanish Catalonian artist, having put several months of hard labour, finishes his painting titled The Farm. Desperate to find a buyer, he visits several art dealers, but to his utter dismay, no one is interested in even having a look at the 48.7 inch by 55.6 inch painting.<br /> <br />Paul Rosenberg (1881–1959), the famous French art dealer and collector, associated with the likes of Pablo Picasso, makes a friendly but ridiculous suggestion. He reasons that Parisians were living in small rooms and were therefore looking for small paintings. So, could Miró cut his painting into eight pieces and sell them separately? “Rosenberg spoke seriously. After a couple of months, I withdrew the canvas from him and took it to my workshop, living with her in the midst of misery.”<br /><br /> It must have been a heart-breaking experience for the young, penniless artist who had brought his beloved Spanish village to life in the painting. “The Farm was a résumé of my entire life in the country,” he recalled several years later. “Nine months of hard work! Nine months (curiously, the same as the human gestation) every day painting and erasing it and doing studies and returning to destroy them! The house was the summary of my life (spiritual and poetic) in the field. From a large tree to a small snail, I wanted to put everything I loved in the field… During the nine months, I worked for seven or eight hours a day. I suffered terribly, like a condemned person.”<br /><br />Enter Hemingway<br /><br />1925. Paris. 26-year-old Ernest Hemingway, a struggling writer, sees Miro’s painting, which is still unsold. He is instantly captivated by it. “No one could look at it and not know it had been painted by a great painter,” he recalls later. “The painting had in it all that you feel about Spain when you are there and all that you feel when you are away and cannot go there.” Such is Hemingway’s fascination that he wants to buy the painting right away — even though he does not have a cent in his pocket!<br /><br />To cut a long story short, Hemingway manages to strike a deal with Miro’s dealer (not Rosenberg) and agrees to pay 5,000 francs (about $ 250) for ‘The Farm’; the payment is to be made in instalments; and the picture stays with the dealer till the last payment is done.<br /><br />When it is time to make the last payment, Hemingway still does not have the money. The dealer is happy and gives a final warning that if the money is not paid, the picture would be gone forever. Hemingway panics; he and two of his friends go visiting bars and restaurants borrowing money from other friends; this way, they somehow manage to find the funds and get the painting released. The dealer feels very bad because he has, by then, been offered four times what Hemingway was paying. But then, business is business!<br /><br />The happy owner puts it in an open taxi but the wind catches the big canvas as though it were a sail. Hemingway orders the taxi driver to crawl along. “At home, we hung it and everyone looked at it and was very happy. I would not trade it for any picture in the world. Miró came in and looked at it and said, ‘I am very happy that you have The Farm’.”<br /><br />In the coming decades, The Farm changes hands among Hemingway’s wives, moves from country to country (France – America – Cuba – America) before settling down at the National Gallery of Art, Washington D C as a donation in 1987 by the writer’s fourth and last wife, Mary Welsh Hemingway,<br /><br />Two masters<br /><br />How two penniless young men in Paris — Miró and Hemingway — went on to become celebrated personalities in art and literature respectively is a well-known story.<br /><br />Miro’s stature in the art world rose steadily. By the time of his death in 1983, at the age of 90, he was known as one of the greatest artists of his era. Although he continued to paint, sculpt and print all through his life, critics feel that his work during 1920s – ‘40s was particularly brilliant. Miró himself considered The Farm to be his first masterpiece. He held that “it was not only the summary of one period of my work, but also the point of departure for what was to follow.”<br /><br />A happy, modest, disciplined and meticulous man, Miró never stopped experimenting and innovating. We must explore all the golden sparks of our souls, he would say. “For me, an object is always alive. A cigarette, a matchbook contain a secret life much more intense than certain humans… I see a tree, I get a shock as if it were something breathing...” He revealed an undying fascination for the immense sky, the crescent of the moon, and the sun. In his pictures, he made tiny forms materialise and spring to life in huge empty spaces. “Empty spaces, empty horizons, empty plains — everything which is bare has always greatly impressed me.”<br /><br />Miró, who was associated with the Surrealist movement, often looked into his dreams and into his childhood memories to generate creative ideas for his art. “It was Miro’s power of recall as much as anything else that caused the Surrealists to adopt him,” wrote art critic Robert Hughes (The Purest Dreamer in Paris / Time Magazine / Oct 25, 1993). <br />“His art seemed to open a direct line to the repossession of childhood through unedited memory.”<br /><br />Hemingway too rose in stature and became a swashbuckling adventurist and fêted writer. His books like A Farewell to Arms (1929), For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940) and The Old Man and the Sea (1951) came to be hailed as major literary achievements. ‘Papa’, as he had long called himself, went on to win, among others, the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1953; and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954 “for his mastery of the art of narrative …and for the influence that he has exerted on contemporary style”.<br /><br />Papa’s personal life was far from satisfactory, though. Drinking, violent outbursts, roguish behaviour and fear of insanity became part of his personality. As someone commented, ‘his inner landscape was a nightmare’.<br /><br />Seven years after winning the Prize, in the early hours of Sunday, July 2, 1961, Papa put his favourite double-barrelled shotgun against his forehead, and blew his brains out. Way back in 1928, his physician father Clarence Edmonds Hemingway too had shot himself in the head with a Civil War revolver.</p>
<p>Joan Miro’s iconic work, The Farm, was painted 90 years ago, and its first owner was Ernest Hemingway, who bought it for $250, writes Giridhar Khasnis<br /><br /></p>.<p>1922. Paris. Twenty-nine year old Joan Miró, an obscure Spanish Catalonian artist, having put several months of hard labour, finishes his painting titled The Farm. Desperate to find a buyer, he visits several art dealers, but to his utter dismay, no one is interested in even having a look at the 48.7 inch by 55.6 inch painting.<br /> <br />Paul Rosenberg (1881–1959), the famous French art dealer and collector, associated with the likes of Pablo Picasso, makes a friendly but ridiculous suggestion. He reasons that Parisians were living in small rooms and were therefore looking for small paintings. So, could Miró cut his painting into eight pieces and sell them separately? “Rosenberg spoke seriously. After a couple of months, I withdrew the canvas from him and took it to my workshop, living with her in the midst of misery.”<br /><br /> It must have been a heart-breaking experience for the young, penniless artist who had brought his beloved Spanish village to life in the painting. “The Farm was a résumé of my entire life in the country,” he recalled several years later. “Nine months of hard work! Nine months (curiously, the same as the human gestation) every day painting and erasing it and doing studies and returning to destroy them! The house was the summary of my life (spiritual and poetic) in the field. From a large tree to a small snail, I wanted to put everything I loved in the field… During the nine months, I worked for seven or eight hours a day. I suffered terribly, like a condemned person.”<br /><br />Enter Hemingway<br /><br />1925. Paris. 26-year-old Ernest Hemingway, a struggling writer, sees Miro’s painting, which is still unsold. He is instantly captivated by it. “No one could look at it and not know it had been painted by a great painter,” he recalls later. “The painting had in it all that you feel about Spain when you are there and all that you feel when you are away and cannot go there.” Such is Hemingway’s fascination that he wants to buy the painting right away — even though he does not have a cent in his pocket!<br /><br />To cut a long story short, Hemingway manages to strike a deal with Miro’s dealer (not Rosenberg) and agrees to pay 5,000 francs (about $ 250) for ‘The Farm’; the payment is to be made in instalments; and the picture stays with the dealer till the last payment is done.<br /><br />When it is time to make the last payment, Hemingway still does not have the money. The dealer is happy and gives a final warning that if the money is not paid, the picture would be gone forever. Hemingway panics; he and two of his friends go visiting bars and restaurants borrowing money from other friends; this way, they somehow manage to find the funds and get the painting released. The dealer feels very bad because he has, by then, been offered four times what Hemingway was paying. But then, business is business!<br /><br />The happy owner puts it in an open taxi but the wind catches the big canvas as though it were a sail. Hemingway orders the taxi driver to crawl along. “At home, we hung it and everyone looked at it and was very happy. I would not trade it for any picture in the world. Miró came in and looked at it and said, ‘I am very happy that you have The Farm’.”<br /><br />In the coming decades, The Farm changes hands among Hemingway’s wives, moves from country to country (France – America – Cuba – America) before settling down at the National Gallery of Art, Washington D C as a donation in 1987 by the writer’s fourth and last wife, Mary Welsh Hemingway,<br /><br />Two masters<br /><br />How two penniless young men in Paris — Miró and Hemingway — went on to become celebrated personalities in art and literature respectively is a well-known story.<br /><br />Miro’s stature in the art world rose steadily. By the time of his death in 1983, at the age of 90, he was known as one of the greatest artists of his era. Although he continued to paint, sculpt and print all through his life, critics feel that his work during 1920s – ‘40s was particularly brilliant. Miró himself considered The Farm to be his first masterpiece. He held that “it was not only the summary of one period of my work, but also the point of departure for what was to follow.”<br /><br />A happy, modest, disciplined and meticulous man, Miró never stopped experimenting and innovating. We must explore all the golden sparks of our souls, he would say. “For me, an object is always alive. A cigarette, a matchbook contain a secret life much more intense than certain humans… I see a tree, I get a shock as if it were something breathing...” He revealed an undying fascination for the immense sky, the crescent of the moon, and the sun. In his pictures, he made tiny forms materialise and spring to life in huge empty spaces. “Empty spaces, empty horizons, empty plains — everything which is bare has always greatly impressed me.”<br /><br />Miró, who was associated with the Surrealist movement, often looked into his dreams and into his childhood memories to generate creative ideas for his art. “It was Miro’s power of recall as much as anything else that caused the Surrealists to adopt him,” wrote art critic Robert Hughes (The Purest Dreamer in Paris / Time Magazine / Oct 25, 1993). <br />“His art seemed to open a direct line to the repossession of childhood through unedited memory.”<br /><br />Hemingway too rose in stature and became a swashbuckling adventurist and fêted writer. His books like A Farewell to Arms (1929), For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940) and The Old Man and the Sea (1951) came to be hailed as major literary achievements. ‘Papa’, as he had long called himself, went on to win, among others, the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1953; and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954 “for his mastery of the art of narrative …and for the influence that he has exerted on contemporary style”.<br /><br />Papa’s personal life was far from satisfactory, though. Drinking, violent outbursts, roguish behaviour and fear of insanity became part of his personality. As someone commented, ‘his inner landscape was a nightmare’.<br /><br />Seven years after winning the Prize, in the early hours of Sunday, July 2, 1961, Papa put his favourite double-barrelled shotgun against his forehead, and blew his brains out. Way back in 1928, his physician father Clarence Edmonds Hemingway too had shot himself in the head with a Civil War revolver.</p>
